


the heat was hot (and the ground was dry)

by symphony7inAmajor



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Background Character Death, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Linear Narrative, also is it rly romance if you're not traversing a desert wasteland together?, author has read too many YA novels and it shows!, does this count as my astronomy nerd jumping out again? perhaps!, one of THE most self-indulgent things i've written, wrote this thinking about the solar storm of 1859
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 01:30:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18458675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symphony7inAmajor/pseuds/symphony7inAmajor
Summary: Brandon isn’t sure what wakes him up. He feels too warm, even though Adam had rolled over at some point, taking most of the blankets with him. There’s a strange, almost oppressive silence and that--that’s not right.On September 2, 1859, an incredible storm of charged particles sent by the sun slammed into Earth's atmosphere, overpowered it, and caused havoc on the ground. Telegraph wires, the high-tech stuff of the time, suddenly shorted out in the United States and Europe, igniting widespread fires. Colorful aurora, normally visible only in polar regions, were seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii.(or: solar storm, 2019)





	the heat was hot (and the ground was dry)

**Author's Note:**

> what's up. finally some content that i didn't use a prompt for. came up with this one after reading about 1. the solar storm and 2. seeing a post about how apocalyptic deserts are underused in fic. so like. here you go.
> 
> SOME warnings (because this is a story about an apocalypse and therefore we got some violence and death)  
> if you're sensitive to that i would advise skipping "Day Ninety Six" since that's like. the only fight scene. but it's there. and it isn't necessary for the rest of the story, really. also in "Day Sixty" a character gets strangled in an unsexy way, but nobody dies and it's because one of them is sick. no hard feelings, eh?
> 
> if you want to know who i killed in this check the end notes!!
> 
> also popped in some background implied mark/jacob because i love them!!
> 
> uhhh anyway if you see something and you're like. "whoa. this should've been a warning." let me know!!
> 
> title from "a horse with no name" by america (give it a listen it's really good)
> 
> blurb in the summary is from [this article](https://www.space.com/7224-150-years-worst-solar-storm.html)

_Day Five Hundred_

 

It had been cold in Winnipeg, once. Brandon remembers cold winter days, even colder nights, the wind like knives against any skin left uncovered. Snow and ice. 

It hasn’t been cold in a very long time now.

It’s been over a year since Adam and Brandon left the city, the threat of the sunsickness and the army and _everything_ too dangerous for them to stay. When the city skyline appears on the darkening horizon, Brandon turns to Adam. Adam pushes his ski goggles up and pulls his scarf down. Brandon does the same. It’s been so long since they had a proper meal that Brandon can hardly remember what Adam’s face looked like _before,_ both of them little more than skin stretched over ropy muscle and bone.

They’ve been running for a long time now.

Brandon touches Adam’s face gently. Adam closes his eyes and leans into it.

“Ready to go home?” Brandon asks. Adam opens his eyes, smiling faintly.

“It’s about time,” he says. Brandon takes his hand and Adam’s smile widens, the flash of his teeth visible even in dusk.

 

_Day Zero_

 

Brandon’s going to tell him tonight.

After the game, Brandon wipes the snow off his skates, takes a long drink of water, and goes to find Adam.

“Come over tonight,” Brandon says when he finds him, lying on his front on the table and getting a knot rubbed out of his back. Adam winces at a particularly hard press, then shoots him a lazy thumbs up.

“Sure thing,” he says. “I’ll drive over after-- _ow--_ this.” He smiles up at Brandon, making his mouth go dry. Brandon ruffles his hair, laughing at Adam’s outraged noises. He pats him on the head once before leaving, saying goodbye to the guys on the way out.

 

He drives home, strips out of his suit, and jumps in the shower. He’d only rinsed off the worst at the rink, opting instead to use his own soap and shampoo at home. He pauses while getting dressed, wondering if maybe he’s trying too hard. Like, _soap?_ Adam probably won’t even notice.

His phone lights up with a text from Adam.

_let me up!!_

Brandon smiles and buzzes him in.

Adam opens the door without knocking, takes off his shoes and jacket before joining Brandon in the living room.

“Hey,” Brandon says. He feels a flicker of doubt when Adam looks at him, wonders if this is the right thing to do.

“So what’d you want to talk about?” Adam asks, and Brandon blinks.

“Uh. What makes you say that?” Adam rolls his eyes. 

“I know you,” he says. “And it’s pretty obvious there’s something bothering you, so, you know. Spit it out.” He looks at Brandon expectantly. Brandon bites his lip, thinking about it for a moment.

“Okay,” he says finally. “I, uh. Have feelings for someone.” Adam’s expression flickers a little bit, into something Brandon doesn’t know how to read.

“Oh,” Adam says. He looks away from Brandon, fiddles with his watch instead. Brandon had gotten him that watch for his birthday, an analog one with a sturdy leather strap. Adam had protested that he didn’t know how to read time on an analog watch, but Brandon had promised he could learn. He doesn’t remember the last time he saw Adam without it. “Does she know?”

“He’s not a she,” Brandon says, tense. Adam’s shoulders droop a little, and Brandon _knows._

“Does he?” Adam asks, and his voice is a little unsteady.

“Adam,” Brandon says, and Adam looks to him with wide eyes. Brandon takes a breath. “It’s you.”

When Adam kisses him, Brandon forgets to be scared.

 

In the coming weeks, Brandon will wish he’d done something different tonight. Called his mother, his brothers, his friends from home. Told them he loves them. 

Tonight, he doesn’t know that he won’t ever see them again.

Tonight, he curls against Adam’s back, and falls asleep.

 

_Day Sixty_

 

Adam’s sick. 

 _Sunsick,_ Brandon knows. That’s what they’d started calling it back at the camp, during the first week of the outbreak. Ten days before Adam and him had taken as much as they could carry and gotten the hell _out._

His lips are cracked and dry, the fever making his skin as hot as asphalt under the noon sun.

Brandon keeps him in the basement of an abandoned farmhouse, sealing the windows shut and locking the door so he can't hear Adam screaming in the night.

He had to tie Adam to the furnace, bind his hands and ankles together to keep him from hurting himself, or trying to hurt Brandon. Late at night, when even the fever and the thirst can’t keep Adam awake anymore, Brandon lies awake in the silence and wonders if the next morning will finally be the day he finds Adam dead on the floor, like so many others before.

Every time Brandon goes down to see him, Adam looks at him with eyes that don't even look human, making horrible snarling noises deep in his throat. Brandon hasn’t heard him speak since the first day he got sick, when Adam had begged him to do what he had to to keep him from hurting Brandon.

They both remembered what had happened in Winnipeg.

Today, Brandon carries the dish of water and food downstairs to silence. Adam is lying on the floor, motionless. Brandon can't even see him breathing.

He sets the dish down carefully and gets closer. He steps across the line he'd traced that marks the limit of Adam’s reach and kneels next to him.

“Adam?” he says, touching his shoulder cautiously, and a split second later he's on his back, Adam pinning him to the floor. His eyes are wild and hungry, his teeth bared like an animal. He keeps licking his lips, and Brandon realizes with horror that he's licking away his own blood. Adam can’t get much leverage with his hands bound, but he’s still bigger and heavier than Brandon. “Adam,” he says again, his voice little more than a wheeze, all the air knocked out of him.

Adam doesn’t respond, just makes a terrible whining noise in his throat. Brandon tries to move his hands, shove Adam off of him, but the rope can’t stop Adam from lifting him up and slamming his head back against the hard floor. It doesn’t knock him out, but it _hurts,_ and he cries out, tears springing to his eyes. Adam’s hands move to his throat, his unsteady fingers brushing over his pulse points. He licks his lips again, then presses down.

Brandon jerks, his hands flying up to Adam’s wrists. He knows he can’t overpower Adam like this. He saw what happened when people tried to fight off the sunsick back home, their desperation giving them inhuman strength and viciousness. Instead of trying to pull Adam’s hands off his throat, he strokes his thumbs over the thin skin of Adam’s wrists, over where the skin is chafed raw and bloody from the rope.

“Adam,” he says, desperate to talk in case Adam remembers anything if he gets better, even though his voice is barely audible. “I--it’s okay, just--” He tries to suck in a breath, but he can’t. His vision is going gray around the edges, and he tries to look at Adam. Adam is staring at his face, his eyes bloodshot and his lips drawn back from his teeth in a twisted snarl. “I love you,” he rasps. “I forgive you.” For a split second, Adam presses harder. Then he throws himself back, as close as he can get to the furnace. He curls up against the steel, hands covering his face.

Brandon sucks in a painful breath, rolling onto his side to cough. He touches his throat, wincing. That’s going to leave one hell of a bruise. He drags himself back across the line. He’s not sure how steady his legs are right now. Turning back, he sees Adam still pressed against the furnace. His shoulders are shaking. He’s stopped making that _noise_ and now it just sounds like he’s _crying._

Taking unsteady steps, Brandon stands and collects the tray of food and water, pushes it carefully into Adam’s reach. Before he can draw back, Adam catches his hand between his own. Brandon freezes.

“I’m sorry,” Adam says. His voice is cracked and faint from disuse, but he’s _talking._

“You’re okay,” Brandon says, voice rough. “Just.” He pushes the water closer with his free hand. “Drink.”

 

_Day Fourteen_

 

“You guys will be staying here,” the soldier says. He's brought them to what amounts to little more than some tarps suspended over bare earth, a few blankets spread out beneath it.

“Home sweet home,” Adam says under his breath as the soldier walks away.

Brandon leans against him briefly after they drop what stuff of theirs the soldiers let them keep, just to ground himself. Adam takes his hand and squeezes it carefully.

There are a couple of guys playing cards nearby, young enough looking that they probably came from one of the universities. One of them, freckled with a shock of red hair and a sunburn to match, waves them over.

“Welcome to Winnipeg two-point-oh,” the ginger says cheerfully when Adam and Brandon sit down.

“Uh, thanks?” Adam sounds a little uncertain.

“Don’t worry about him,” the other guy says. He has darker skin than his friend, but the skin on his nose is peeling all the same. “He’s been going crazy since he _thinks_ he found out what happened.”

“I’m right,” says the ginger, dealing in Adam and Brandon. “Poker, no betting. Low-ball.” Brandon picks up his cards.

“This is Will.” The ginger ignores him. “I’m Ethan.” Brandon shakes his hand, introducing himself.

“So, uh, what happened?” Brandon asks. Ethan kicks Will when he opens his mouth to respond.

“Well,” he says, “Will was in _humanities,_ so he thinks what happened was orchestrated by the government.” He says _humanities_ in the same tone someone might say _intestinal parasite._ Ethan shakes his head. “What happened is completely natural. It’s happened before, too, but not this severely. At least, not that we can remember.” Ethan frowns at his cards, tosses three into the middle. “Solar storm. The last one was in the nineteenth century, and the EMP knocked out pretty much everything electrical they had. Nothing like this one though.” Ethan smiles at the confused expressions on their faces. “I’m in astrophysics,” he says. He looks at Brandon and Adam, thoughtful. “What do you guys do?”

“We’re, uh. We were hockey players,” Brandon says. “For the Jets.” _We don’t know how to be anything else,_ neither of them say.

“Well,” Will says, nodding approvingly, “no wonder they put you in this section, eh?” Ethan shoots him a warning look, but Will keeps talking. “Stick around for another day, you’ll notice everyone in this section is young and strong.” He smiles, but it’s not a happy expression.

“I don’t understand,” Adam says.

“Can’t you tell?” Will asks. “They want fighters.”

 

_Day Three Hundred Sixty Five_

 

One year.

One year since the solar storm, one year since what Adam has drily nicknamed “The End,” one year since the world they knew ended.

One year since it rained.

Adam leans against Branon’s side when Brandon marks it into in the beat-up journal. Brandon flips through the book, where some dates have short phrases scrawled underneath them, marking more significant events.

_Southern ON uninhabitable: fallout._

_Vancouver empty._  

_Mountains deadly, glaciers gone._

_Adam sunsick._

Always something else.

None of them can convey the emotion Brandon had felt when he had written each of them down, the grief and the despair, knowing millions of people were dead, knowing his _family_ was dead, always trying not to be the next. He traces a finger over the _V_ in _Vancouver._

Adam gets up, disappears into a store. Brandon closes the book and tucks it back into his bag. He studies his hands, skin dry and cracked, the scar on his palm from the barbed wire in Calgary.

Brandon jumps when the sound of glass breaking comes from the store Adam went into.

“Adam?” He gets up, reaches for his machete. _It’s the soldiers, they found us, no, they’re all dead, so it’s the sunsick, I don’t want to kill anyone else--_

“It’s okay!” Adam calls. “Just, uh, stay there.” Brandon sits back, but stays poised, ready to run to Adam if he needs to. He doesn’t want to kill anyone else, no, but he would for Adam. He has. Brandon flexes his fingers, remembering the soldiers. Remembering Calgary.

Brandon stands up when Adam comes back, going to him quickly. Adam has blood on his hand.

“What _happened?”_ Brandon asks, taking Adam’s bloody hand.

“It’s nothing, just got my wrist when I tried to break some glass. I’ll be fine.” Adam shows him. Barely more than a scratch, but.

“Don’t _scare_ me like that.” Brandon shoves him gently in the chest. Adam catches his hand and holds it over his heart.

“I just.” He hesitates. “I needed to get something for you, okay, and it’s, um.” Brandon can feel Adam trembling, a little. “It’s okay if you don’t,” Adam says, and he goes to a knee. He keeps holding Brandon’s hand, but in his free hand he’s holding a gold ring. Brandon can feel his heart in his throat. “I know it doesn’t mean much, anymore,” Adam says, “but I wanted to--” He’s cut off by Brandon dropping to his knees in front of him and kissing him firmly on the mouth.

“I love you,” Brandon says, breathless. “I love you, and when this is over, I’m going to marry you, Adam Lowry.”

Adam slides the ring onto his finger with unsteady hands. It’s a little loose, but Brandon doesn’t care. He twists it around his finger, just feeling it, then slides it off, takes off his necklace and puts the ring on there. For safekeeping. Adam touches the ring where it sits against his collarbone, brushing his thumb over the gold.

“Yeah,” he says, and his face is determined. “When this is over.”

 

_Day One_

 

Brandon isn’t sure what wakes him up. He feels too warm, even though Adam had rolled over at some point, taking most of the blankets with him. There’s a strange, almost oppressive silence and that--that’s not right.

“Adam,” Brandon says. Adam grumbles and presses his face into the pillow. “ _Adam_ ,” he repeats, urgently this time, because deep in his mind, he knows something is _wrong._ “Wake up, _now_.” This time, Adam rubs a hand over his face, blinks himself awake.

“Whazzat,” he mutters. Brandon turns on the light. Or, at least, tries to. Nothing happens. “Power’s out?” Adam sounds more alert now, a little worried.

“Guess so,” Brandon agrees. He tries not to sound like he’s freaking out, but he is, a little. There’s a sound outside like distant thunder, and they both jump. Brandon picks up his phone to use the flashlight, but it doesn’t turn on either.

“If you’re out of battery, just--“ Adam stops, tapping at his own phone. “Mine isn’t working either. What’s going on?” Brandon takes a deep breath.

“Get dressed. Let’s see if we can find out what’s happening.”

Brandon opens the sliding door to the balcony and steps out. He freezes, stunned at the sight.

Outside is _wrong_. The sky is bright as day, but the sun isn’t up yet. Instead, northern lights are dancing across the sky, bright greens and purples and blues, as far as he can see. There are people are in the streets, pointing at the sky and shouting.

Some of them are praying.

The lights in the sky mean it takes a moment for Brandon to notice that all the lights in the city are out. There’s a smoky smell in the air, and in the distance, Brandon can see the dull orange light of fire.

It feels too hot for early spring, a dry kind of heat that makes it hard to breathe. When Brandon turns to look at Adam, Adam’s looking back with an expression bordering on panic, and Brandon wants to freak out too, but right now he _can’t,_ for Adam’s sake if not for his own.

“I think,” Brandon tries to swallow, but it feels like his saliva is gone already. “I think we should get some things together.”

Neither of them speak while they take some bags, throw as much Gatorade and bottled water as they can into them. _Just in case_ , Brandon thinks, but some deeper part of his mind knows that whatever’s going on just isn’t _right._

It’s so _hot._

 

 

_Day Ninety Six_

 

Calgary is a warzone.

Brandon can tell even from outside the city, smoke rising from the downtown core.

“Are you sure we can’t go around,” Brandon says, but it isn't a question. He already knows the answer.

“We need supplies,” Adam says, and he looks at the city where he grew up with a mournful expression on his face. “We’ll be okay.”

The soldiers ambush them when they come out of a gas station convenience store.

Brandon knows they’re soldiers because they’re still wearing their uniforms, although they’ve torn off the patch of the canadian flag.

And two of them have guns.

“Drop all your shit,” one of them, a tall man with a shaved head, orders. Neither of them move. “Drop it!” the guy screams, spittle flying from his lips, and Brandon understands.

“They’re infected,” Brandon breathes, and the way Adam tenses beside him means that he recognizes the sunsickness as well as Brandon does.

“Shut _up,”_ another yells. His hands are shaking so badly on his gun that Brandon doubts he could hit a man standing a foot away from him.

“There are only five of them,” Adam says. Brandon wonders, for a second, if that would be a good idea. After all, the sunsick can do things most people wouldn’t normally be capable of, the fever driving them insane. Looking closer, though, Brandon can tell these men are still in the early stages, when the fever is high but not maddening yet.

“Quick,” is all Brandon says, before he moves. Brandon was fast on skates, and he’s still fast now, sprinting forward to tackle the first soldier. The man’s head slams against the pavement hard enough to knock him out cold, and Brandon’s up and moving again before anyone can get their weapons on him. _One gun down._

Adam’s dispatched another man, the soldier groaning in pain as he clutches his head. One of them, carrying a baseball bat studded with nails and wrapped in barbed wire for good measure, takes a swing at Brandon that would’ve killed him if it touched him. The guy’s sunsickness is the only thing that saves Brandon’s life, his balance off and the force behind the swing making him stumble past Brandon, who kicks his feet out from under him. The guy lands on the bat and _screams,_ but Brandon ignores him.

Only one of them is still standing, but Adam has his back turned, making sure the man with the second gun is well and truly out, and the last man is holding a buck knife, heavy and dangerous. Brandon doesn’t think, just reaches under the guy with the bat and closes his hand around the barbed wire. He yanks, but the bat doesn’t move, the wire slicing into his hand. The guy shrieks again as Brandon pulls _hard,_ driven by fear, and the bat comes free.

Adam turns just in time to see the man raise the knife, throwing his arms up, then Brandon gets there, slamming the bat into the side of the man’s head with a sickening crunch. He drops instantly, blood pooling on the pavement where he falls.

Brandon’s hands go numb and the bat falls to the ground. His right hand is covered in blood, welling from the wound he got from the wire. It doesn’t hurt yet, but Brandon knows it will. Right now, though, he can’t feel _anything._

“Brandon?” Adam sounds hesitant, sounds _scared,_ and he can’t--Brandon staggers back a few steps, turns and falls to his hands and knees, and throws up.

Adam comes to him anyway. He kneels next to him, and when Brandon’s finished, he pulls him closer. Brandon goes easily, lets Adam run a hand through his sweaty hair. He pushes his head under Adam’s chin, shaking, while Adam holds him and says nothing.  

“He was going to kill you,” Brandon says, finally. His voice is raw.

“I know,” Adam says. “I would’ve done the same thing.”

 

_Day Five Hundred Three_

 

Winnipeg isn’t as bad as the last time they were here, over a year ago. The sunsick that made it so dangerous are either gone, dead, or recovered, and if there are any people left, they’re in hiding.

They went to their old homes to find anything that might’ve been left behind, pictures of their families, old clothes, anything with sentimental value.

Adam had held Brandon the first night, when they’d slept in his old apartment, Brandon clinging to a picture of his brothers while he cried.

Today, they’re going to the rink.

Brandon doesn’t know what to expect, going there. The banners with their pictures on them are still there, mostly, though faded from exposure to the sun. Most of the glass is broken.

The automatic doors are easy to open, the electricity required to power the locks long since gone. Inside feels at once familiar and new, the hallways uncharacteristically silent and dark.

Until Brandon hears someone following them.

He doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow, just touches Adam’s wrist carefully in warning. Adam taps his hand back in understanding. The person behind them is probably in sock feet, only the soft _swish_ of fabric against the floor audible, but getting closer. They don’t stop until the footsteps are right behind them, then turn together, grab the person by the arms and shove them into a wall.

“Oof,” says Mark Scheifele. Adam shrieks and leaps away. Brandon feels frozen in place, still holding Mark’s arm.

“What the _fuck,”_ Adam yells. “What the fuck!” Mark blinks, squints through the dark.

“Wait,” he says. “Adam? Brandon?” Brandon finally lets go of his arm, although he still feels shocked.

“We thought you were all dead!” Adam’s still shouting.

“ _I’m_ not,” Mark says. “But.” He looks at the floor, swallows.

“Who?” Brandon asks, not sure he really wants to know. Before Mark can answer, there’s the sound of running footsteps, followed by more shouting.

“They’re _alive?”_

“It’s Adam! And Brandon, holy shit!” And then someone is hugging Brandon, and he can see _Patrik_ hugging Adam, and they’re _alive._

“Guys, hey,” Mark says, and his sharp voice cuts through the shouting. “They just got back. I think we should tell them what’s happened, first.” He motions for them to follow him, leading them deeper into the arena to where the players lounge used to be.

Jacob is in there alone, sitting on one of the couches. When he sees Brandon and Adam, his eyes go huge with shock, but he doesn’t get up right away. He has to reach down to pick something up, what looks like a broken hockey stick, and use that to stand. He limps over to them, sort of falls against Mark like standing is too hard.

“Well,” Jacob says. “You guys missed a lot.”

Mark makes them all sit down, pulls Jacob down next to him so he can prop his leg up.

“Blake’s dead,” Mark says, and he says it fast, like ripping off a bandaid. And, okay. Brandon thought everyone was dead until today, but now seeing that some of them survived and having to find out that not all of them did somehow hurts _more._

“How?” Adam asks, in a tone that suggests that he can’t believe it’s true.

“My fault,” says Jacob, to objections from the rest of the room. 

“It was nobody’s _fault,”_ Mark says, like they’ve had this argument before. He sighs. “We staked out the arena early on. We knew it’d be convenient, lots of heavy doors that we could lock, food and stuff to drink, kind of built like a maze. But we had to go outside sometimes, get supplies we just didn’t have here. Blake took Jake and Buff with him on one mission. Buff came back carrying Jake, but Blake never did.”

“It was the sunsick,” Jacob says in an empty voice, like it won’t hurt as much if he acts like it’s fine. “One of them got my knee with a crowbar.” He taps the end of his improvised cane. “Blake fought them off until Buff could get to me, but.” He looks down. “One of them had a knife.”

“We brought the sickness back with us, too,” Buff says. “We lost Ben, Tyler and Jack to it.” Brandon feels sick.

“And not everyone wanted to stay,” Mark says. “Some guys left the city with their families to find somewhere safer.” He grimaces. “Don’t know how many of them succeeded. We heard about the nuclear plants back in Ontario.” The room is quiet for a minute. “We should get some sleep,” Mark says finally. “You guys can stay here, if you want. We have lots of space.” He almost manages not to sound sad about that.

It’s Jacob who notices the ring, trailing after Mark while he leads Brandon and Adam to a space where they can sleep. Adam’s ahead, talking to Mark, when Jacob reaches out and hooks a finger into Brandon’s chain, tugging the ring out from under his shirt.

“You and him, huh.” Jacob doesn’t look very surprised. “When did you figure it out?”

“The last night,” Brandon says. His mouth twists. “We didn’t exactly get any time to do the whole _dating_ part before we were fighting for our lives almost every day.”

“At least you _have_ him,” Jacob says, and Brandon blinks, startled. Jacob doesn’t sound bitter or angry, just. Resigned, tired. He shakes his head before Brandon can say anything. “I had my chance,” he says. “I blew it a long time ago.”

That night, Brandon lies in the dark, Adam in his arms, and thinks.

“We can’t stay here,” he says eventually.

“I know,” Adam says, and he sounds sad.

“Just.” Brandon sighs. “Too many bad things happened here.” Adam turns to face him, slides a hand up the side of his neck to cup his cheek.

“Not all bad, though,” Adam says. “You had the team. You got me.” His face looks hopeful and uncertain at the same time, like he’s not sure Brandon agrees with him.

“And those are still the best things that ever happened to me,” Brandon says, feels Adam relax against him. “I just--until this is over, I don’t think I can live here again.”

“But we can stay for a little while, right? We can come back and visit?” Brandon pulls Adam closer, kisses his forehead.

“Yeah,” he says. “They’re my friends, too.”

“That’s good,” Adam says. He smiles into Brandon’s kiss. “As long as I have you with me.”

 

_The Last Day_

 

Brandon wakes up before Adam, on the last day. They found an old house with a cellar and a deep well almost six months ago, tucked away into the woods north of Winnipeg. If it weren’t for the way everything outside is brittle and dry in a way that’s worse than even the hottest days of summer, it might feel like some modicum of normal.

Well, the heat, and the way they haven’t seen another person in months. Not since the last time they made a run down to Winnipeg.

All the shutters and curtains stay closed during the day to keep the worst of the sun out, so Brandon lights a candle and leans over the old TV. He tries to turn it on, fails.

Just the same as the last six months, then. He sighs, leans back against the couch.

“Morning,” he hears Adam say before he comes into view. He leans down to drop a quick kiss onto Brandon’s mouth. He looks at the TV and frowns. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, remember?” Brandon squeezes his ankle before Adam goes into the kitchen. He tilts his head against the couch and stares at the ceiling, bringing a hand up to twist the ring around its chain.

He hears Adam fiddling with a can opener, muttering crossly about how annoying it’s being, and Brandon is struck with the painful knowledge of what could have been, if this hadn’t happened. He thinks about it, not for the first time, but listening to Adam grumble in the kitchen and remembering everything they’ve been through together, he knows it’s for the last time. He stands up, takes the can and the can opener from Adam, and opens it for him.

Adam smiles, gives him a _thank you_ kiss. Brandon sets the can down.

“Hey,” he says seriously. “I love you.” Adam looks a little bit surprised at this timing, but he always likes to hear it, so he smiles. He kisses Brandon again, soft and sweet.

“Love you, too,” Adam says. His eyes catch on something over Brandon’s shoulder and hold. Brandon goes back to making breakfast. “Why’s it still dark out?” The shutters do a valiant job of keeping the sun out, but usually they can still see daylight. He checks his watch, like it might be broken.

“Dunno,” Brandon says. “Maybe it’s early.” He pulls out a pot and lights the stove with a match.

“No, it’s eight in the morning.”

“Maybe the watch is broken?” Adam makes a thoughtful noise, but goes to the door anyway.

It’s still early enough that Brandon isn’t worried about being outside, so he turns back to the stove, adjusting the gas flow. He empties the can of soup into a pot.

“Brandon,” Adam says. His voice is unsteady, like he might cry. Brandon turns sharply to see him looking out the door with an awe-struck look on his face.

“What is it?” Brandon asks, already going to him. Adam looks at him with tears in his eyes, but he’s smiling.

“It’s _raining,”_ Adam says.

**Author's Note:**

> mentioned victims: everyone in the GTA, vancouver, blake wheeler, jack roslovic, ben chiarot and tyler myers. nobody else is mentioned specifically.
> 
> some answers:
> 
> i did keep a lot of things vague on purpose, yes, but i figured it was more fun that way. also i'm not a biologist but neither are adam or brandon so i figured they wouldn't know why there's a disease!! some people are immune, in others it's fatal and in even more others it's just a bad time until maybe you survive. creative license.
> 
> the nuclear power plants in ontario basically instant meltdown which killed uh. most people around lake ontario. sorry if you're from the GTA i guess!
> 
> if you have questions just ask, and i will do my best to answer. 
> 
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> 
> [tumblr](https://symphony7inamajor.tumblr.com)


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